T-Mobile SpringBoard Tablet Hands-on Video

The T-Mobile SpringBoard tablet hopes to steal some thunder from the Kindle Fire this holiday, packing 4G data inside a 7-inch slate. We went hands on with the Huawei-made device at CTIA and came away impressed with the build quality, especially since this tablet is supposed to be very affordable. How affordable? Huawei wouldn’t say during its press event, but they did say we would be “impressed” with the price.

The SpringBoard features a mostly aluminum shell that gives it a quality feel. There’s white plastic on the top and bottom of the rear panel, which is where the antennas reside. We also like how sharpness of the display, an IPS panel with a relatively high resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Read on for more details and check out our hands-on video.

On the inside, the SpringBoard packs a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 processor. You’ll also find a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.3-MP front-facing camera for video chat. Battery life for the SpringBoard is estimated at 5 to 6 hours, which is decent but on the lower end of Android slates.

Unfortunately, the SpringBoard rides on T-Mobile’s 14 Mbps 4G network, not the latest 42 Mbps speeds offered by devices like the HTC Amaze 4G and Samsung Galaxy S II. Still, if the price is right, the SpringBoard could turn a few heads.

A newspaper man at heart, Dan Howley wrote for Greater Media Newspapers before joining Laptopmag.com. He also served as a news editor with ALM Media’s Law Technology News, and he holds a B.A. in English from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.